


Dark Side

by Moonrose91



Series: Gift Verse [8]
Category: Marvel (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Deaf Character, F/M, First Gift Verse Chapter Story, M/M, Violence is in later chapters but some in the first, most likely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-06
Updated: 2012-09-04
Packaged: 2017-11-11 13:26:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/479014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonrose91/pseuds/Moonrose91
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the long line of being an agent, or asset, of SHIELD, you never walk along without making at least one enemy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. War Between Brothers

Asset Phillip J. Coulson wasn't sure how he was going to be able to handle this.

He had always been one for details, always been one to take the oddest of puzzle pieces and put them together to make the larger picture.

And how he hated that skill now. Because, the puzzle pieces were before him in various files that were scattered across the levels of clearance. He stared down at them, face a composed mask of indifference, while he stared down at the file folders that could only spell out one thing.

Agent Gregory Lamont, his mentor, the one he considered as close to a father as he was ever going to get, was selling out fellow agents, making a profit off of secrets that only he and the Director should know. Asset Phillip J. Coulson’s hands shook with what he was seeing, silently begging to every deity he had ever heard of that this was a mistake, that he wasn’t reading this right. That he was just missing a connection that had to be there.

“Penny for your thoughts?” a voice asked and the 28 year old asset looking up from his desk, only to see Gregory Lamont standing there, leaning against the doorframe.

“I don’t think they are worth that much,” Coulson answered calmly.

Gregory walked in. He wore his twenty extra years of experience over Coulson well. Of course, unlike Coulson he hadn’t been trained since he would walk on the ways to kill a man. 

Hadn’t been trained to take the puzzle pieces and fold them together into a big picture and see it clearly as if it meant nothing.

Give him a table covered in office supplies and weapons (the same thing in SHIELD terms) and he could easily kill a man and make it look like an accident, or just use a paper clip.

However, when the organization fell when he was seventeen, Fury hadn’t been sure what to do with the blood soaked teen who just stared at him.

The first thing he head learned was how to take his emotions and put them in a box in the back of his mind.

And staring at the man who he loved, cared for, and would do anything for, he took every emotion and boxed it all up.

“I think they are, Phil. More, actually,” Lamont said as he strode forward.

Coulson didn’t hesitate. When Lamont was close, Coulson snapped out his hand, slamming it into Lamont’s nose and quickly had his handler subdued on the ground, digging his knee between Lamont’s shoulder blades. He had a hold of the man’s wrists and managed to pin Lamont to the ground.

“What the hell Phil?” the man demanded.

Coulson knelt down. “The formations. The misses and hits. The secrets. The _agents and assets_. These aren’t just numbers in black and white anymore, Lamont,” he stated.

That was enough to tell Lamont what he meant. “Knew you were too damn smart and too damn loyal to Fury at the same time,” Lamont stated.

Coulson didn’t answer, just leaned harder into Lamont. The man let out a howl as the shoulder dislocated and Coulson didn’t hesitate, misaligning Lamont’s spine in some places so the man couldn’t get up. Only then did he release Lamont and head over to the phones.

“Director Fury? Asset Coulson. I have found some evidence to the leak and have the agent in custody…Agent Lamont, sir…Yes, I understand. I will wait,” Coulson answered and then set the phone down.

Lamont let out a low and wheezy chuckle. “Ah, the Vault. Right next to the people I’ve thrown in there. Is it really worth it, Phil? Sending the man you care for, maybe even love, to be torn apart by the animals he threw into the cages?” Lamont asked.

Coulson stared into the distance for a moment, considering the faces. The agents and assets who had died because this man had sold to the highest bidder.

“Yes,” Coulson answered.

There was a pained grunt as the man tried to move, but Coulson ignored it.

All of his emotions were in little boxes and he wasn’t going to be letting them out anytime soon.

“Well, remember that, Phil. Remember that,” Lamont answered.

“I’ll never forget, sir. It was one of the first lessons you taught me. ‘A man who can’t keep his nest clean is no better then a rat’,” Coulson quoted.

The laughter was just this side of madness by the time other agents arrived.

Coulson was unsurprised by the fact they trained their guns on him, suspecting him above the agent as the true criminal. He went to his knees easily, not wincing at how tightly they tied his hands and arms behind his back.

The entire time, he kept his eyes away from Lamont, even as they got him onto a stretcher. On his desk, agents poured over the files he had connected, highlighting the important parts.

They were his copies, not the ones that needed to be filed. He could do what he wanted with them.

With a soft sound, he was hauled to his feet and forced out of his small office.

He wondered what would happen to him now, especially since his handler, the agent in charge of him, was going to be going to the Vault. Maybe he would join the man.

Coulson wasn’t sure if that would be a personal hell yet or not.

However, a month of intensive interrogation later, Coulson was released into a new handler’s care…and another’s…and another’s. He went through them like wet tissue paper, as he put more and more boxes of emotions into the back of his head to keep from snapping and murdering his handlers that treated him like he was an unfeeling, unthinking, killing machine.

Because he was far from it.

By the time Fury pulled him from the roster to get some deserved time off, Coulson wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to open the boxes in the back of his head.

“Asset Coulson, I’ve been considering something. Something that hasn’t been done before,” Fury said.

Coulson twitched his head and asked, “And what would that be, Director Fury?”

“Making an Asset, an Agent. I need an agent who can handle cases, like yours. Cases who need a special hand until the Asset can work with anyone, or even be an agent in their own right, without the need for a Handler 24/7. And I think that Asset should be you,” Fury answered.

Coulson stared blankly at Fury, though inside, his confusion and surprise exploded around his brain.

“Director, I believe that would be a poor decision,” Coulson answered, Lamont’s betrayal barely a year old in his heart.

“I don’t think so. A year of training, you would be ready for your first Asset. Unless, of course, you’re saying that I am mad and should be locked up,” Fury answered.

“I would never slander your good name like that, sir,” Coulson answered.

Fury grinned and nodded. “I have just the person to train you,” he stated.

One year, two months, and five days later, Asset Coulson had become Agent Coulson.

And Agent Coulson was given his first assignment.

Track down Clinton Francis Barton and bring him back into SHIELD, either to place into the Vault or to fold into SHIELD.

Coulson just knew he’d have to keep the boxes in the back of his head and ignore how anything made him felt.

His emotions had blinded him once. He would not have it happen again.

_ 16 years later… _

The man was gaunt from the Vault. Eyes mad-bright, but coldly calculating as he quickly snapped the neck of the guard, and he turned, slowly because of his back problems that had come from having his spine misaligned slightly, and he focused on the young agent. “Now, tell me what I’ve missed while I’ve existed in my little Hell on Earth,” he ordered.

And the young agent obeyed.


	2. Call the Names

Clint grinned at the sound of Elizabeth's laughter as he swung her up into the air. The four year old swung through the air easily and he smiled before he pulled her close to blow a raspberry against her stomach. She laughed more, squirming in his grip and he smiled before settling her against his shoulder. He pressed a kiss to her hair before he ran a hand over her hair. She immediately looked up at him and he signed 'I love you' as he said it.

She smiled brightly and signed it back before giving his cheek a kiss.

He let out a happy sigh and realized that in eleven years, she would be in high school and he would have to go shoot every boy who was going to get close to her, because Clint _knew_ boys. Their parents could not be trusted to teach them to be respectful. "Maybe it isn't too late to talk Phil into an all girl's school," he muttered softly and she patted his lips, a demand for translation.

Wait, that might not entirely solve the problem if she ran into disrespectful girls.

He was just going to have to shoot them all.

He just smiled and tried to 'bite' her fingers. She let out a giggly squeal and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Please tell me she behaved," Phil stated as he walked forward, and Clint gave Phil a quick kiss before depositing the girl into Phil's waiting arms. "Naturally our baby girl behaved. After all, she has me as a role model," Clint answered.

"That is exactly why I worry," Phil answered calmly, even as he carefully settled her in his arms, the four year old happily flopping against Phil's shoulder while Clint pouted.

Their hands would often fly in signing as they talked, a habit they had quickly fallen into, but not everything was one-handed, so Phil often used abbreviated signs, which frustrated their four year old. Phil pressed an apologetic kiss to her forehead, and she forgave him (she always forgave Phil) and Clint stepped around to stand at Elizabeth's side, before he settled his hand on Phil's lower back. "Come on, baby, let's go to dinner," Clint stated and Phil sighed, made an aborted hand motion that they were  _not_  going to be teaching their daughter for some time, and they headed for their favorite Chinese place.

Clint, for the fifth time since coming to the park, looked around.

He couldn't shake the feeling he was being watched.

* * *

“Go back,” the man ordered and the young agent obeyed.

The man’s eyes tracked each movement and he grinned. “Pause that,” he stated and he looked at the frozen picture on the screen. In the odd light that came off of the screen.

“What can you tell me about the girl?” he asked, tapping the four year old girl’s frozen face on the still screen.

“She’s not in any files. I looked, after the first time I saw her at the daycare,” the young agent stated and the man nodded slowly before slowly standing back up.

“Tell me about the daycare,” he ordered.

The young agent hesitated, before he began to explain it. “Security everywhere is much stronger. The hard part, if we were to get her from there, would be to convince them that one of them had sent you, or me, or one of the others to go pick her up. They might not let her go if we aren’t in the computer,” he stated.

“That’s why I contacted you, Rush. You’re the computer expert. Get one of us in there. That’s the only place we’ll be able to grab her from,” he stated.

“Yes, sir, Lamont,” Rush answered and began to work on it.

Lamont let out a low sigh and walked over to where he could oversee the men who were going to be slipping into SHIELD.

He just needed to get a few key people out of the way.

Oh, yes, and have his revenge.

“Phil, Phil, Phil, you just _had_ to, didn’t you?” he murmured softly, before he leaned against the wall.

He wondered how far he could get with the kid. Well, that was what pilots were for, weren’t they?

Lamont let out a low sigh.

He hated this relying on people shit.

“Sir, do you want Pierre or Samson to go in?” Rush called.

“Samson. He’s better with charming people,” Lamont ordered.

“Yes, sir,” Rush responded and got to work.

Lamont smiled a bit before he let out a low hiss.

He had been on his feet too long. With a stiff gait, he made his way to his room. He needed to lie down.

* * *

Marian Lowe was new.

That doesn’t excuse it, but it does explain it.

The man, Ronald Samuels, was charming. He brought a hand-written note and explained that Elizabeth’s father had told him to come get her early because her Papa had gotten in an accident.

‘Friend from work’ was what he had said. And his driver’s license checked out and he was in the computer, so Marian had called back to have Elizabeth brought forward. The girl was hesitant, but Ronald was gentle. She went with him and she walked them out.

It was only thirty minutes later, when Clinton Barton stumbled in, asking for his daughter, that Marian realized her mistake.

She didn’t think she would ever forgive herself.

* * *

Agent Coulson picked up his phone as it rang. “Agent Coulson,” he greeted.

 _“Phil,”_ a voice he never thought he would hear again responded.

The pen dropped from Phil’s hand in shock, staining the report he had been writing.


	3. Battle Dawn

"Lamont. I thought you were in the vault," Coulson answered, even as his hands shook.

Shook with a quiet fear that made his heart want to leap out of his chest. _"Oh, I was. I got out, though. Tell me, how is Elizabeth?"_  Lamont asked and hung up.

The threat was enough however and Coulson is at his computer, finding the connection he has to the security cameras around the daycare. And he sees Elizabeth, scared but knowing she can't do anything with the man holding her wrist, get placed in the car, buckled in tight. She signs something, a house sign, and he backs it up.

'Beer.'

He blinked a bit, thinking, before he remembered they had been teaching her how to pass information, in case something like this happened. In case she knew that she couldn't do anything. There was only so much a four year old could do. Throwing a screaming fit and fighting could be seen as a tantrum. A cry and a shove could be seen as saying no. And she couldn't scream words. She couldn't cry for help or shout that someone was kidnapping her. She couldn't do any of that.

She could only hope that someone understood. So...beer. What could--

Clint only loves one type of beer. Samuel Adams. It lives on the top shelf, in the back of the fridge, and he only has one every once in awhile. But when giving her visuals, they had pulled it out.

Clint votes for teaching her bad words at ten, but Coulson is against her learning bad words at all.

Samuel Adams. Or maybe Adam Samuels.

He immediatly begins to search for something, anything, that could have it come up and comes up with something.

Agent Samuels, released last year due to family concerns. He pulled up where he went after SHIELD, but there was nothing.

He had just disappeared.

He glanced back at the screen and watched as Clint began to look around. Coulson picked up his phone and called Clint. "They are headed north," he stated and Clint hesitated before he swung onto his motorcycle took off. Coulson immediately began to work on finding out if the car's lisence plate had been caught and rattled it off, along with the type of car, while Clint took off, the wind whipping from where he had his hands-free device hidden under his helmet.

"Clint, don't do anything rash," Coulson warned.

 _"Is crashing my bike into the driver's side of the car rash?"_ Clint asked.

"Yes," Coulson answered.

 _"Good thing that wasn't my plan. Where are they?"_ Clint responded.

Coulson tried to find them when he heard Clint's snarl of rage. "What is it?" Coulson asked.

 _"I found the car. It is parked illegally near a subway station. She's gone, Phil,"_ Clint answered and Coulson felt his heart stop.

"Debrief the minute you return, Agent Barton. I'm on my way to Director Fury's office to inform him of the situation," Coulson stated.

He got an affirmative, and Coulson hung up.

Oh, yes, he was going to inform Director Fury of the situation.

He was also going to rip into the Director for not informing Phil about the fact that Gregory Lamont had broken out of the Vault, because that was something Phil should have been informed of immediately, so he could lock Clint and Elizabeth down in a safe house somewhere.

And now, a highly trained ex-agent with a grudge had his daughter in his hands.

Coulson was ready to kill.


	4. Lullaby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a really bad word toward the end, because it is Nick Fury as played by Samuel L. Jackson.
> 
> I'm sure everyone now knows what that word is.

Elizabeth is terrified.

The man is strange, but she could read. Read the driver's liscence something Samuels and the only thing she knows she would be able to sign is the codeword.

When she was two and first showing her 'talkative' nature, her Mama and Daddy began to teach her games. That was how they had described them, when she was younger, but Mama took her aside and explained that, while fun, they weren't just games. They were 'techniques.' They were 'safety.' They taught her how to escape, evade, _hide_. How to get out of situations where the man who took her from the daycare and safety and _takes her on the subway_  so he can ditch the car means that she can escape.

Elizabeth focuses on the way he's holding her wrist and hand.

She remembers Daddy doing just that, and twisting just right, spinning and running, using the furniture of their house to evade and escape, but that ended in laughter and falling and 'again'.

This...this is not that. This will not end with her Daddy wrapping his arms tight around her and laughing that makes her entire body shake.

She wants it to be that, but she's focused on timing the doors.

Lots of people, but she's small. A quick twist and she could be out the doors before he has time to realize that she's gone.

He should have carried her, but then she would have slammed her head into his face, scratched at his eyes and bit him.

That, Auntie Nattie had taught her.

However, she is focused.

It took one stop before she could find it. Letting one door open and shut. As they come to the second stop, she twists and runs, rushing between the people, rushing through them and ducking through a turnstyle and racing across the metal bridge work and she's already on the stairs and no one really sees her as she climbs down and hides herself away in the shadows of where the stairway comes together through everything. She is shaking and scared and she can't see the badguy, but the stairs vibrate under her hands where she clings, people passing all around her.

She is shaking and she wants to cry, hard and long, but she can't. The part of the games that always scared her was when she had to hide the dark, away from everything she knew, and with the repeated phrase, signed and said, her Papa Nick's voice (he's too old to be an uncle, no matter what he tries to get her to call him) so deep that it rumbles against her back as she rests against his chest, flickered across her sight with Auntie Nattie's fine hands, the way Mama is sure and Daddy's calloused hands always 'stutter' over it.

_Do not make a sound. Do not cry. I know that you'll want to, but you can't, not if you want to survive._

It is a lot to put onto a four year old's shoulders, but she knows that what her family does for a living is dangerous.

She wonders if she'll ever see her friends after this, but she doubts it.

They won't let her go back to that daycare. Maybe they'll move (again). Maybe Mama will finally get to go back to London.

He liked it there and she shakes lightly in her spot, eyes searching.

Its not safe and she shakes when she feels something drip onto her head. She looks up and is relieved to see that it isn't anything really coming through; no one can see her through the metal grating, just like she can only see shapes and shadows.

Her own shadows protect her and she tightens her grip on the bar that she's using to help hide herself and keeps her eyes on the area below, darting.

She needs to find a security camera.

* * *

Director Fury winces, internally, when Coulson enters his office, his face schooled neutrality.

However, the last time Fury saw that face, it was right before Coulson had shot a man in the kneecap, so for Fury, he's just seeing murderous intent.

"I would have prefered to know Lamont had escaped the Vault _before_  he had Elizabeth kidnapped," Coulson greets, voice cold and distant, and Fury is surprised he hasn't already been killed.

"All our intel said he was going after Barton. We were hoping to catch him in the act, without having to warn you. We knew you would never go for the plan," Fury answered.

"Damn right I wouldn't have. Lamont is from the days when SHIELD had no morals. From the days when SHIELD took _seventeen year old children soaked in blood_  and, instead of helping them adjust to world that isn't just killing and stealing _gives them the most dangerous of missions for it_. Lamont will have no qualms about _torturing my four year old daughter_  to death and you didn't think to warn me about how he was out and about so _I would keep my family out of the line of fire?_ " Coulson demanded, voice soft and singing of intent.

Fury wonders how much of that Coulson let slip.

Because right now, he's Director Fury and not Papa Nick (and he's going to kill Clint one of these days for insisting she call him that), and that means that he has to make a choice.

"We'll find her, Agent Coulson. I'll get our best on it," Fury answered.

"But not me," Coulson stated.

"Correct," Fury answered.

He wonders if Coulson is going to do something stupid.

"As you say, Director."

Fury doesn't like that voice.

That voice that says 'you pull me off this and I'll still hunt down the bastard and kill him slowly and I don't care if that's not SHIELD policy.'

It is the voice that he heard right before Coulson put a bullet in the man's kneecap, demanding again, in that quiet voice, where was the antidote for the Director. Where was the antidote for the poison that pulsed through Nicholas Fury's bloodstream?

He hates thinking about how much that voice comforts him when the shit hits the fan.

"Very good, Agent. I'll expect you to check-in every hour. In person," Fury stated.

"Even after closing, sir?" Coulson asked.

"I don't want you to break into my house," Fury stated.

Coulson gave a jerky nod and left.

Fury wonders how much damage the man could do in an hour, until he realizes that Barton ditched today.

Left in a rush and--

"Those motherfucking bastards," he stated, realizing too late why Coulson didn't stress, didn't push.

Because Barton is out there, searching for their daughter.

Barton is a sniper. He carries over that single-minded focus into things outside of being a sniper when given a reason to.

And this is one hell of a reason.


	5. Innocence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is blood in this chapter. Um...actually, there is some minor description of torture, which originally was not going to happen. I'd add it, but then it would be a spoiler, but if you think I should add it to the tags, I will.
> 
> I am not a good judge on that.
> 
> So, I'm warning. Just skip over Clint's part if you want to avoid that.

Elizabeth stayed in her perch for hours, waiting patiently for the next rush of people to erupt. They swarmed under her, but the human inclination to not look up was aiding her, even as she made her way back down to settle back on the ground, hidden by a swarm of people. She began to dodge around their legs, hurrying towards the best security camera she saw.

She twisted her way through the crowd and climbed up onto the bench that had clear sight lines to a majority of the security cameras in the area. Focusing on the one she figured had the best chance of catching her, she began to sign rapidly at the camera, head turning every way she could.

She continued to look around, trembling and shaking when she saw a woman approach. She didn’t know her, it wasn’t someone she knew and Elizabeth wasted no time in clambering off the bench and running away through the crowd, up the stairs and stumbling out into the dwindling light. A headache was starting to build and she wondered when it was the last time she ate, the dark haired woman stumbling after her. Elizabeth turned, slipped and fell back, her head hitting on the curb.

Her vision swam and the last thing she saw was a black haired woman carefully leaning over her, her lips forming words that Elizabeth couldn’t catch.

* * *

Clint didn’t hesitate as he grabbed Peter Samuels as he showed up, knocking him out quickly. He grabbed the man, made sure he was secured in the back of the car he commandeered from SHIELD, and immediately began to drive to a safe house in some back road place.

He glanced in the rear-view mirror as he pulled up to the safe house; a rundown thing that Phil said was going to have to be torn down and rebuilt with better safety systems. He didn’t hesitate to yank the man out of the back and begin dragging him into the safe house.

It was bare, prepped for the demolition and Clint soon had him zip-tied to some pipes in the basement. He recovered his quiver of regular arrows and sat across from Samuels.

And waited.

When the man awoke about ten minutes later with a twitch, Clint wasn’t Clint anymore.

He hadn’t been a mercenary before SHIELD for no reason.

“Where’s the girl?” Barton asked in a cold voice.

His answer was for the man who had kidnapped his daughter to spit at him. Barton removed an arrow and immediately stabbed it through Samuels’s knee.

Samuels let out a shout of pain. “Where is the girl?” Barton repeated.

Panting was his only answer.

Barton twisted the arrow and this time the man screamed loudly, his voice echoing around the basement. “Where is the girl?”

This was the only answer he cared about.

Who he was working for could be worked over by SHIELD agents that weren’t focused on finding their daughter.

More gasping and Clint fetched another arrow and this one he buried into the man’s ball-and-socket joint where the shoulder and upper arm met. Another scream bounced around the stonework.

“Where is the girl?” Barton continued.

* * *

There wasn’t as much blood as one would think. Barton had even made sure that the injuries wouldn’t get infected and then left him. He called in Samuels location and cleaned off his hands with the alcohol wipes that were in the First Aid kit and got in the car, before he let ‘Barton’ slip off and he was Clint again.

He dialed Phil’s number and recited off the station Samuels had lost Elizabeth in.

 _“I’ll pull it up,”_ Phil promised.

Now, they had to hope she wouldn’t fall into bad hands again.


	6. Light of the North

Phil’s eyes searched the footage, even as he worried for Fury pulling him away when he saw a girl climb up on a bench. He cleared up the image as best as he could and let out a long sigh of relief as he saw his daughter, signing quickly, rapidly, when Betty Ross entered the picture. He leaned forward and watched, fear clenching at his heart, as she ran from the female doctor.

Betty, of course, ran after her. Phil scrambled to try and get some footage, but he knew that Clint would be the fastest. He called Clint back and said, “Betty Ross found her. She’s not on SHIELD’s radar and we didn’t even know she was in the state. I’ll send you coordinates for the last place Elizabeth was at. I know you have a picture of her on you.”

_“I got it Phil.”_

Phil nodded and let out a curse as the alarm to go to another check in called to him.

He had no _time_!

His daughter was out in the city, somewhere, after being kidnapped and Phil knew how close she had come to dying.

How close his baby girl had come to--

Phil closed his eyes and shook all over briefly before he pulled himself together and made his way to Fury’s office.

They weren’t making progress and Agent Coulson reported that information had been delivered to him that Elizabeth might be in a subway station and Coulson distantly registered telling Fury this.

And all that swarmed through his head was the fact his daughter was in more danger then before.

She was out in the city, where anyone could grab her, and, while he didn’t wish his daughter back into the hands of someone who was going after him for revenge, he knew that she was guaranteed a long and painful death there, but he did wish to know where she was.

He was allowed back and he focused on his work. He focused on reports and everything when his phone rung.

His work phone.

“Agent Coulson,” he called.

 _“Tell Fury to call off the hunt. I got her,”_ Clint stated and Phil thought he could cry from relief. He slumped over, however, probably wrinkling his suit beyond repair, but he didn’t care.

“How is she?”

 _“Traumatized and not letting me go. Betty is vicious. She thought I lost her. However, she’s the daughter of a general and I merely had to say both of us were in SHIELD and she stopped being so vicious. Well, towards me. She’s got creative ideas of what to do with kidnappers,”_ Clint answered.

“Merely saying he harmed a child in the right people’s ears will do more damage than anything we could do,” Phil answered as he stood, cleaning up his desk.

 _“What are you planning to do?”_ Clint asked.

“Something you won’t like,” Phil responded.

He hesitated and then added, “I love you Clint.”

The fearful silence that echoed across the line told Phil that Clint realized what Phil was going to do.

 _“Love you too,”_ Clint choked out.

“Tell Elizabeth for me that Mama loves her. I have to go,” Phil answered and he got a strained confirmation before he hung up.

People were often scared of Clint.

Naturally, that was because he was a showoff.

However, everyone should be wary of the man who stares unflinchingly into the fire, uncaring if it touches him.

Phil made himself presentable and left his office. He walked calmly to Fury’s office and stepped in. “Clint found Elizabeth. She got away and was hiding in the subway station. Betty Ross found her and resulted in minor injury to Elizabeth. Clint is with her now. I request permission to go after the man who threatened my family.”

Fury watched him and nodded, sliding a file over to him.

“You’re already on the team,” Fury reassured and Coulson nodded calmly, taking the file and walking away.

Gregory Lamont would not survive this encounter.

Phil would guarantee it.


	7. One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the rapid ending.
> 
> The reason it took so long for me to update was because I was trying to think of something else but...
> 
> My brain went 'not today sukah!'
> 
> So...yeah.

The concentrated effort to find where Lamont was hiding wasn’t doing well.

There were no traces, no way to track him, except one.

Coulson (couldn’t be Phil right now, not when he had to go kill an untold amount of people) knew him. Knew where he had loved to go and knew of safe houses he had never told SHIELD about (back up plans are needed).

Coulson was going to ensure that Lamont could never harm his family again.

And the only way to do that would be to kill him.

* * *

There were three safe houses that Lamont could be in that would be feasible for kidnapping a small child, even if it was just to kill her later.

The first had been in the city itself, but all it had was a layer of dust, undisturbed the slightest except where Coulson had been.

The second had been about an hour away, but it had recently been moved out of.

A computer had been taken as well, explaining how they were able to get Elizabeth from the daycare center.

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Fury knew he hadn’t gone running to Elizabeth’s side by now and Coulson was using a car that wasn’t registered to him, or Clint.

It wasn’t stolen either, but an old friend who knew somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody and a car was easy enough to get him.

Along with a few new identities, but that was neither here nor there.

However, that left the third option, which was in the middle of nowhere.

Coulson felt his lips thin in rage involuntarily, even as he squared his shoulders and headed back to the car.

The speed of the packing was obvious in the way the dust had been disturbed and he knew that meant only one thing.

An insider.

* * *

 

He didn’t hesitate to shoot the young agent who stepped up stop him, but it was in the knee.

The kid hit the ground with a shout of pain and Coulson looked over to where Lamont was leaning against the doorway, across the living room, arms crossed and looking smug.

“Phil,” he greeted.

Coulson was pretty sure that Lamont wasn’t expecting to get shot in the head as the response.

“Lamont,” he answered as he stepped over the dead body, quickly shooting two more people who tried to get the jump on him, their dying blood soaking into the carpet before he called SHIELD.

The debriefing took two hours, he was placed on mandatory probation for one week, and sent to the hospital.

He paused in the doorway to Elizabeth’s room, the girl being checked on by a nurse.

Naturally, his bright girl, even with a flashlight being shined into her eyes, had seen him and immediately held her hands out to him, making their home sign for ‘mama’.

He smiled strode forward, waiting only long enough for the nurse to take note of the badge he wore on his suit before letting him pick her up, Clint quickly joining him (which made the nurse; an older woman with graying hair, giggle like a school girl), wrapping protective arms around them both.

“Don’t you _ever_ do that again,” Clint muttered.

“When you stop hiding things about our daughter from me to keep me from worrying, dear,” Phil answered and Clint made a face.

After the hell of a day he had (and he knew, oh God did he know that it could be worse, that he could be holding a bloody and broken body instead of a living, breathing one) it was good to have his family close.

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter story of the Gift Verse. I am a little excited.


End file.
